


I Ain't Afraid of no Ghost

by hopespym



Series: An Office is a Place Where Dreams Come True [2]
Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, Ciri POV, Feels, Fluff and Angst, Ghosts, M/M, but like... both are kinda mild, or are there?, so many feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:21:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22753924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopespym/pseuds/hopespym
Summary: “It’s official! We’re haunted!”Geralt rolled his eyes and settled Jaskier with an unimpressed look, “Don’t listen to him, he was up all night reading conspiracies.”
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: An Office is a Place Where Dreams Come True [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1633564
Comments: 5
Kudos: 95





	I Ain't Afraid of no Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> shows up a day late with starbucks and a hangover. yo.  
> fallen a day behind because i didn't get this finished yesterday before i went out so i apologise for that, but everyone thank the amazing syn once again for being the best cheerleader and beta ever. you're truly amazing!  
> also thank you all for such positive feedback on the first fic, all your kudos and comments absolutely made my day!

“It’s official! We’re haunted!”

Ciri coughed on the mouthful of water she was in the middle of swallowing. Geralt came up behind her and thumped her back a couple of times as she heaved some struggling breaths, “W-what?”

Geralt rolled his eyes and settled Jaskier with an unimpressed look, “Don’t listen to him, he was up all night reading conspiracies.”

Jaskier turned to face him with a completely dead face, “The Government is poisoning snow, and if you don’t believe that now, then I’m sorry but you can’t be saved.”

Rolling his eyes, Geralt walked away from the two of them, Ciri’s breathing now evened out as she stared at Jaskier for a moment longer before she sighed and took the bait, “This place is haunted?”

Face lighting up into a grin for a split second before it dropped to deadly serious, he slung an arm around Ciri’s shoulder and started leading her down the hallways and into a stockroom that Ciri had never really been into before.

“This is the only safe place to talk about this. Well. Not really, but it makes it more fun this way! Don’t you think?”

Giggling as the two of them sat down, Jaskier smiled at her and she was struck with the thought that if she thought of Geralt as something of a work dad, then what did that make Jaskier? Before she could ponder too hard on that thought Jaskier was interrupting her again.

“Ciri.”

His voice held a no nonsense tone and she quirked an eyebrow at him, intrigued by what he was about to say, “Jaskier.”

“Have you ever heard the ghosts?”

The statement startled a laugh out of her and she shook her head, turning to look back at Jaskier who still seemed so completely dead serious. She felt a few conflicting emotions and she knew by now that there was no point trying to hide them, so she also knew that Jaskier could read the confusion, disbelief and question of sanity as they appeared on her face.

“Can’t say that I have, are they friendly?”

“Sometimes. Depends if you aggravate them or not.”

The door opened and Ciri jumped, lost in a trance and focusing on what Jaskier was telling her. She looked towards the door and found Geralt leaning against it, watching them with a quirked eyebrow and a look of disbelief. 

Seemingly taking a closer look at her face, he sighed and muttered a  _ ‘fuck’ _ before opening the door futher, “Get out.”

Taking the invitation for what it was, Ciri essentially scurried out the door and past Geralt and back to her desk. Neither Jaskier nor Geralt followed, and she tried to busy herself with something useful but kind of just ended up shuffling paper around in different stacks.

After another few minutes Geralt and Jaskier came out of the office, Jaskier lamenting about something new whilst Geralt looked towards Ciri and frowned. Feeling like a little kid who had just been caught doing something wrong, Ciri ducked and continued shuffling paper.

Taking a deep breath, she released it and continued writing an email that she was midway through writing. Just when she had sent it there was a hand tapping on her computer screen, making her jump again. She looked up and found Yennefer smiling down at her, “Ghosts, real or not?”

“Excuse me?”

“Simple question, Ciri.”

She looked past Yennefer and found Tissaia looking at her, not even having the shame to look away when Ciri looked right at her. She frowned minutely and looked back to Yennefer, opening her mouth to speak a couple of times before she spluttered, “Why is everyone talking so much about ghosts today?”

Yennefer’s smile turned shark-like and she turned back to Tissaia, “Called it!”

Tissaia groaned from her desk chair, an unusual display of feelings towards anything that wasn’t… Well. It was more emotion than Ciri had seen of her to date anyway, “I had faith in you, Ciri.” 

Ciri sighed as the two continued bickering across the office. She looked towards Geralt and Jaskier again; Geralt was clicking away on his computer, probably playing solitaire if she knew him well enough (which she hoped that she did, but that was besides the point). 

On the other hand, Jaskier seemed to be trying to get her attention and once he saw he had it he held up a piece of paper with the word  **_‘EMAIL’_ ** on it. Nose scrunching in mild confusion, she clicked onto the email logo, refreshed the page and sighed before clicking on the most recent email - one from Jaskier that had been sent only a few minutes previous.

**Subject Title:** _ the most important email ever _

_ Stay late tonight. We’re goin’ hunting. _

**From: Dara**

_ so run it through with me again why you’re not coming home tonight? _

**To: Dara**

_ Ghost hunting. _

**Dara is typing . . .**

**From: Dara**

_. . . _

_ not even asking.  _

**To: Dara**

_ It’s probably for the best that you don’t. _

It wasn’t that hard staying late, especially since Geralt had decided that her and Jaskier were going to be staying behind doing something ‘stupid’ then he wasn’t letting them do it alone. And that was probably for the best if Ciri was being honest, even if Jaskier wouldn’t stop pouting and mock-complaining.

So Triss had left with the parting words of, “Don’t be stupid, don’t leave the floor and remember where the censors are. If I have to come back because you three were mucking around and triggered the alarm I will not be happy.”

And now here they were. Standing in the middle of their office building at 8 pm.

“Jaskier, what are we actually doing here?”

Ciri tracked Geralt out of the corner of the eye, the man making his way to the main receptionist room and spreading out on one of the couches. Leaning his head against the wall and closing his eyes he spoke with no infliction in his tone, “Looks like we’ve got another mystery on our hands.”

An unimpressed look on his face, Jaskier turned in the direction of Geralt and spoke in the same emotionless tone, “Zoinks!”

Trying to hold in a little giggle and not really hiding it too well Ciri went and joined Geralt on the couch, still not really sure why exactly she had agreed to stay behind in the first place. She was just glad that they had gone back to their own homes first to collect some necessities for their overnight stay.

“Right. I’m gonna be honest, I have no grand plan  _ but _ what I do know is that we’re gonna find some ghosts and try not to let Geralt get possessed.”

Lifting an eyebrow and feeling mildly concerned about what she was getting herself into, Ciri looked between the two men questioningly, “And that happens often?”

Opening his eyes, Geralt’s grin turned a bit feral before he tampened down a bit, “Only on Sundays.”

The three of them didn’t really do much in the first few hours. Ciri was glad that she had the foresight to bring her book with her. Jaskier apparently thought that the night was going to be more interesting because he mainly seemed to be focused on trying to annoy Geralt, who had brought his own book with him and seemed to almost completely tune out his partner.

Well, at least to someone who didn’t know that Geralt was trying not to smile everytime Jaskier poked anywhere on his body or started on another tale that was too crazy to be true. To be fair, Ciri wasn’t trying at all to hide that she found the situation amusing and she could  _ also _ tell that both the men seemed to be totally relaxed, Jaskier even grinning at her more and more whenever he caught her laughing quietly to herself.

Eventually Geralt interrupted Jaskier’s rant about how he was reading a thread online about how the earth is hollow, which Ciri refused to admit that she found interesting to anyone but herself, “So are we ghost hunting or what?”

Groaning, Jaskier collapsed in the seat beside Geralt and his head fell on the other man’s shoulder, “Have you never seen any paranormal documentaries ever? You can’t just wake up ghosts, they come out when they want.”

Putting her book down beside her, Ciri stood to go get a cup of water from the water cooler, “That’s usually after they make first contact.”

Unsurprised by the  _ ‘pfft’  _ sound Jaskier gave in response and ignoring the displeased sound he made when Geralt made to get up, both Geralt and Ciri started walking around the office. It was darker now and they had turned most of the lights off, not really wanting to draw attention to the fact that they were still in the office and also Jaskier said something about lights scaring ghosts which was just untrue.

The main room of their office floor was a big open space with room for reception and a kitchen space, but it had a hallway leading to the elevator and around the outside, separating some of the storage rooms from the main room. They had other rooms and offices on the floor above them as well, but everyone mainly stayed on the one floor.

Ciri had never been more relieved but also unnerved by the fact that the walls of the main room were made of glass because she was able to see all the surrounding areas, but since most of the lights were out she kept getting tricked by the things she was seeing out of the corner of her eyes.

“You know they say someone died here.”

“Jaskier!”

Feeling her stomach drop minutely, Ciri ignored the bickering happening between the two older men. She wasn’t sure when but at some point she had started getting genuinely scared of whatever they were or weren’t looking for, whether it was real or not.

Taking a deep breath, she turned around to where Jaskier and Geralt were still arguing, “-well it’s not like there’s a place in the world where  _ someone _ hasn’t died at some point! People die! Everywhere!”

Grunting, Geralt looked towards Ciri and his face twitched before he looked back to Jaskier, “Not the time.”

Jaskier’s eyes flicked to Ciri as well momentarily before he sighed and nodded and Ciri found it hard to not take in a breath of relief. God. They hadn’t even found any sort of evidence for the fact that ghosts resided in the premises.

She hadn’t even noticed that she was zoning out of the conversation again until Geralt’s hand was on her shoulder and she jumped, letting out a startled squeak. It took a few heaves for her to get her breathing back to normal and Geralt looked more worried than she had seen him before.

“Maybe we should just stop and go to sleep.”

Shaking her head, she put a smile on her face, not wanting to ruin the night’s activities, “N-no, it’s fine. It’s fine!,” she looked out towards the area in front of them and took another breath, “We can keep going.”

Now it was Jaskier who walked up to her with an uncharacteristic frown on his face, worry clear in his eyes, “I’m sorry if I scared you, we really can stop if you don’t feel comfortable.”

Gently shrugging off Geralt’s hand from her shoulder she put a smile on and started walking forwards. She didn’t say anything in return and they didn’t ask any more questions, but she heard their footsteps loud enough to know that they were staying close. 

Stopping at one of the doors to a resource room, Geralt opened it up and all three of them made their way in, flicking the light on. This resource room was probably one of the bigger ones with file cabinets on the sides of the wall, a small desk in the middle and papers and other types of objects strewn everywhere. 

The file cabinets and shelves were all bulk full - some filled with empty cardboard boxes alone, but it felt cramped for the way that there were three people and that Geralt was no small man. 

They milled around in the room for a few more moments and were about to leave when one of the boxes got knocked off the shelf. Gasping, Ciri turned and found nothing where the box had been, and neither Geralt nor Jaskier were near the shelf.

“Hm. Just a coincidence.”

Looking at Geralt, Ciri nodded at the stubborn look on his face. She picked up the box and frowned when she found it was empty. Putting it back on the shelf she had another look and let out a startled shriek when the lights turned off out of nowhere.

It only took a second for Geralt’s phone light to come on and then Jaskier followed, all three of them leaving the room, “What the hell?”

All the lights in the building were now turned off and the three of them were stuck standing in the middle of a completely dark room. Walking closer to some of the computer monitors, even through the darkness Ciri could tell that the older man was frowning, “Seems like a power cut. Looks like we really are stuck here until the morning, or until it gets fixed at least.”

In the light coming from their phones, Ciri could faintly see Jaskier roll his eyes and more heard then saw when he ended up falling over, not expecting a rubbish bin to be directly under him. Ciri rushed over and helped him up and he smiled at her for her trouble.

Deciding to just stay where they were, it wasn’t a few more moments before they heard loud noises in the resource room they had just come from. Having her own phone still in her pocket, Ciri clutched it like a weapon she could pull out for protection when needed.

Before she moved she turned to Jaskier, “Do you really believe this place is haunted?”

The man huffed and threw his arms up, a pout firm on his face, “I thought it could be a cool bonding thing!”

Pursing her lips, Ciri stood and pulled her phone out, faintly hearing more noises from the room. Exhaling, she turned on her phone light and started walking towards the room cautiously. 

The door was left open a little from where they had exited hastily, and through the slit between the door and frame she could see new boxes on the floor and paper strewn more wildly. She didn’t bother looking back at the other two as she nudged the door open.

She had just walked inside where one of the boxes on the floor moved and she couldn’t help reacting by falling back into the wall. 

It was like a horror movie, or that’s what her mind was making her think anyway as she continued to watch the box on the floor move and then another box on the shelf fall onto the ground again. 

Biting her lip nervously, she reached for the box on the ground and her breath became slightly more panicked when she couldn’t find anything underneath it. 

Eyes wide and phone moving restlessly, she tried to find a source for all of the movement and screamed when the door opened behind her, “Everything okay in here?”

Closing her eyes, her head thunked against the wall as she took deep, calming breaths. She could feel Jaskier’s eyes on her and before she could answer the lights came back on in the room, causing her to jump again with her hand on her heart.

“Oh good! Power’s back!”

Watching Jaskier leave the room with a look of confusion and disbelief written plain on her face, Ciri tried to make rational sense of what she had witnessed. Seeing something move out of the corner of her eye, her head whipped in the direction of it but she couldn’t find anything.

Frown back on her face, she heard Geralt calling her from the other room and so sighed and left the room, shutting the door firmly behind her. If there really were ghosts, which she hated that she was almost certain of now, then they would surely be able to go… Through walls or something, but it made her feel better.

Standing in front of Geralt and Jaskier, who were sitting on one of the sofas in reception she stared at them blankly before addressing Jaskier, “I’m ignoring all emails from you for the foreseeable future.”

The man nodded solemnly, but from the slight twinkle in his eye, he knew that she was joking, “Completely understandable.”

Once again, Geralt was lying on the couch with his head against the wall and eyes closed, “At least it’ll be a fun story to tell everyone tomorrow.”

Nodding and taking a seat beside Geralt, possibly closer than she normally would, she relaxed into the cushions and was already trying to just… Forget what had happened tonight. 

If trying to make a practical reason for it hadn’t worked then this was the next best step.

Looking at the time on her phone, 3:51 am glaring at her, she fully leaned into Geralt's side and sighed minutely when his arm wrapped around her.

“Looks like we’ve got a mystery on our hands, indeed.”

Back in the resource room, the door shut tight and the light left on and a box thrown across the room in a blind moment of panic, two rats tried their hardest to make their way to the top of the shelves, through a gap in the ceiling and then back out of the building the way they had come in by mistake one day.

As they scurried over different boards and over where the three loud humans were now sleeping in some mismatched pile, they were glad to have fresh air in their lungs and to be out of that damn room.

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you thought below!
> 
> come screech with me about geraskier:  
> twitter: [betsybraddocks](https://twitter.com/betsybraddocks)  
> tumblr: [thescarletwitch](https://thescarletwitch.tumblr.com/)


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